Street Fight Daily: Google Introduces Offline Metric, McDonald’s Tests Loyalty Program

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology

Google-Maps-icon (1)Google Introduces Cross-Device and Offline Conversion Tracking (Screenwerk)
Google clearly understands the value of measuring online-to-offline conversions and this morning the company introduced what it’s calling “Estimated Total Conversions” for AdWords. This is an effort to capture cross-device shopping and offline conversions. The new analytics capability will roll out over the next 4 – 6 weeks. However the offline tracking/conversion feature will not roll out until next year.

JiWire Rolls Out Attribution Product As Mobile Ad Market Zeroes In On ROI (Street Fight)
The conversation in the mobile advertising industry has shifted focus in recent months, moving away from targeting toward attribution and measuring return on investment. Following a string of product releases from competitors, JiWire, a San Francisco-based mobile-local ad startup, rolled out a new attribution tool called Location Conversion Index this morning, which draws on a similar technique used by competitors to measure in-store visits but allows marketers to normalize those numbers against a wider sample.

McDonald’s Stores Trying Loyalty Program (Bloomberg)
McDonald’s franchisees are rolling out an electronic loyalty program in about 570 U.S. locations as stores seek to attract younger customers. The world’s largest restaurant chain has been testing a mobile payment program and introducing new items, such as pumpkin lattes and chicken wings, to lure teens and young adults as business in its home market stumbles. After ordering via a mobile phone, customers can pick up food in stores, curbside or at the drive-thru, according to notes from a June meeting of McDonald’s franchisees and company executives obtained by Bloomberg News.

Mobile Dominates Local, but Are Wearables the Future? (Street Fight)
Confirming a widely held belief, a new study from Yext found that the overwhelming majority of consumers – particularly those in younger generations – prefer accessing local information through a smartphone, even while a desktop computer is within reach. As the mobile market expands beyond smartphones into an array of internet connected devices, the next question for local technology firms is whether a new breed of mobile, and wearable, devices, might generate a similar opportunity.

Facebook Says Its Mobile App Ads Work, So It’s Making More of Them (GigaOm)
According to Facebook, the mobile ad units, which the company released last year, drove more than 145 million installs across smartphone platforms. Tuesday’s update gives brands the tools to targets users who have already downloaded an app, and encourage them to reengage with the product.

Hot Tactics For Geo-Targeted Ads On Google & Bing (SearchEngineLand)
There are a number of reasons why one would want to geotarget ads, even for products/companies where you don’t particularly feel that there is any obvious need or requirement to make an ad locally oriented. While perhaps the main reason one may geotarget ads is because one only offers services/products within specific areas, there is a huge and compelling demographic component involved with geography that can influence CTR and conversion rates as well.

This Google-backed Startup Lets Small Biz Automate Marketing Like The Big Boys (VentureBeat)
Everyone knows that marketing automation is the new advertising. The problem is, how do you implement it without breaking the bank — and, if you’re a small business, without breaking your virtual back? It’s been difficult and challenging to implement an alphabet soup worth of new tools and new processes for small businesses, many of which are run by sole proprietors or a single-person marketing “team.”

Quri Raises $10M To Give Brands In-store Intelligence And Help Consumers Earn Cash While They Shop (GigaOm)
Launched last year, Quri gives brands a window into how their products are promoted and displayed in-store. According to the startup, retail brands spend more than $600 billion each year on in-store promotions, merchandising and marketing, but lose billions of dollars in potential sales from out-of-stock items and poorly executed displays.\

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